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Dessert

Brandy Tutti Frutti

A fruit preserve made with brandy, sugar, and various fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Brandy Tutti Frutti

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a 3-gallon jar, combine 1 quart of brandy and 3 pounds of sugar; stir frequently.

Add the fruit

  1. When strawberries are ripe, add 3 pounds of hulled strawberries and 3 pounds of sugar to the jar.

  2. Continue to add an equal weight of fruit and sugar as each fruit comes into season.

  3. Pitted cherries, cut plums, peeled and sliced peaches, and diced pineapples can be added.

Store and serve

  1. Cover the jar tightly and store in a cool place, stirring daily until the jar is full.

  2. Serve with ice cream and blancmange.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Peach + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Plum + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Plum + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apricot + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Plum + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol (fusel, malty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brandy
Acts as a preservative, keeping the fruit from spoiling during long storage.
Sugar
Draws moisture from the fruit and preserves it, adding sweetness.
Strawberries
Provide the base fruit flavour and juice that mingles with the brandy and sugar.
Cherries
Add fruit body and tart flavour to the preserve.
Peaches
Contribute soft texture and sweet, fragrant flavour to the preserve.
Apricots
Add fruit flavour and soft texture to the preserve.

The step that matters

Keeping the fruit fully submerged in the brandy-sugar syrup. Fruit exposed above the liquid can mould and spoil. Stirring daily helps dissolve the sugar and keep fruit pieces covered, which is why the jar must be kept tightly closed in a cool place.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sugar, plum, peach, apricot):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, plum, peach, apricot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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